The US car market may have been in a slump for the past two years with the country mired in a deep recession, but that hasn't stopped foreign automakers in Asia and elsewhere from betting on a comeback.
Despite a more than 20-percent drop in vehicle sales in the United States over the course of last year, and a similar drop in 2008, executives at Detroit's annual auto show this week sounded cautiously bullish about the prospects for 2010 and beyond.
Much of this is about being realistic. As the world's largest economy, the United States remains as critical as ever to the success of global carmakers, whether or not consumers are being cooperative.
Emerging powers like China, which has more cars on the road than any other country, are growing in importance as their economies gather strength. But much of the population can still only afford the cheapest of vehicles, leaving the US as a prime market.
"We have three 'number one' priorities: The United States, China and India," Takanobu Ito, chief executive of Japan's Honda Motor Co., told reporters on Monday, the first day of a two-day press preview of the Detroit show.
Honda's conservative estimate is for a total of 11 million vehicles to be sold in the United States in 2010, up from fewer than 10.5 million this year and still far below the average of 16 million seen through most of the last decade.
Some companies have already started to see a turnaround. Japanese carmakers Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda saw their sales jump more than 20 percent in December compared to a year earlier, helping to cushion the blow in an otherwise tough year.
While the Japanese makers have been in the US market for years, others are just getting started. South Korean firms Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp. were among an exclusive group of carmakers that actually increased their US sales in 2009.
Their success to date has been largely based around smaller, greener models. Toyota has cornered the market for hybrid petrol-electric cars with its Prius for more than 10 years. It pushed ahead with the unveiling of a new, cheaper hybrid "concept" car on Monday.
Honda responded with its own hybrid-only Insight last year, and though it was met with somewhat poor sales and reviews, the company has pressed ahead with a new "sporty" compact hybrid, the CR-Z, unveiled at the Detroit show and due out this summer.
Detroit's automakers are slowly responding to the foreign invasion after battling through one of their worst years in 2009. The "Big Three" of General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC made up less than 45 per cent of US sales last year.
Ford, which began a major restructuring effort three years ago, is leading the resurgence. General Motors and Chrysler are just beginning to find their feet after going through major bankruptcies in the spring of 2009.
